NATO Submits New Offer on Arms Talks

The 16 NATO countries on Friday submitted a long-awaited proposal for new talks on European military security and conventional arms reduction.

It was the most significant proposal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since 1980, said Warren Zimmermann, U.S. ambassador to the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The Communist Bloc had given the conference several proposals on security talks and had criticized the Western Alliance for not presenting one earlier.

NATO and the seven-member Warsaw Pact have been holding exploratory talks since Feb. 17 on the possibility of new all-European arms negotiations.

Two Sets of Talks

On Friday, the West proposed two sets of talks within the framework of the conference, which is the third follow-up conference to the 1975 Helsinki conference on military security, economic cooperation and human rights.

The proposal differed from the Warsaw Pact’s proposal last month by omitting mention of battlefield nuclear weapons.

One set of talks proposed by the Western alliance would involve all 35 nations in what would amount to a continuation of the Conference on Security Building Measures, which ended last year in Stockholm.

In Stockholm, the 35 NATO, Warsaw Pact and neutral nations agreed on some forms of verification, including informing each other about military maneuvers and inviting observers to military exercises.

Stumbling Block

The new proposal would make the verification agreements binding. Verification has been a stumbling block at the 13-year-old Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction talks, also held in Vienna.

The West also would like to see agreements on a broader exchange of much more detailed military information, Portuguese Ambassador Jose Queiroz de Barros said. The West contends that the East has more troops in Europe and does not give accurate accounts in official statistics.

The second set of talks would involve only the 23 nations that make up NATO and the Warsaw Pact because they have the most military power in Europe, Zimmermann said. These talks would concentrate on arms reduction.

Both Sets in One City

France had agreed with the Warsaw Pact that all 35 nations, including neutral and nonaligned countries, should participate in these talks. But France later dropped its objection to the Western majority position.

Western delegates said they proposed that both sets of talks be held in the same city.

Zimmermann said the Western nations agreed on the proposal only after six months of “very difficult . . . work within NATO.”

He said it is NATO’s most significant proposal since the 35 nations met in Madrid in 1980 and France made a proposal that led to the Stockholm conference.

De Barros said the Warsaw Pact should not accuse the West of dragging its feet on the proposals.

“NATO is a democratic alliance in which all 16 members have equal rights, and democratic deliberation takes longer,” he said.